Best Picture: #56
Original Release Date: December 9, 1983
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2 hours, 12 minutes
Director: James L. Brooks
Quick Impressions:
For her own capricious and mysterious reasons, my grandma could not stand Shirley MacLaine. (She had bafflingly strong feelings about actors. If it hadn’t been for Lauren Bacall, who miraculously escaped her wrath, we never could have enjoyed any movies together!) As a result, I (almost inexcusably) had never seen Terms of Endearment until I watched it with my daughter this week. Oh, I almost saw it plenty of times. My mom loved Shadowlands, so she went through a Debra Winger phase and may have watched it then. I don’t remember. As a massive fan of The Simpsons, I almost rented Terms of Endearment from Blockbuster as a teenager (but was probably thwarted because it was my grandparents’ Blockbuster card), and I almost sought it out again when I watched first As Good as It Gets and then Spanglish. Somehow, I always got distracted, though.
But now I’ve seen Terms of Endearment, and my daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Unlike her late great-grandmother, she’s loved Shirley MacLaine ever since we watched The Apartment. That was just days after my mother died, and we got so involved in the movie that we just kept watching. Usually we break up the movies into school-night-sized chunks, but we couldn’t turn off The Apartment. We just sat there laughing and crying and laughing again. I wish I had a video of her reaction to Shirley MacLaine’s face in that New Year’s Eve party scene near the end! It was priceless.
We both enjoyed the metadramatic layer of talking together about the conversations the mother and daughter on screen were having. (She called this out specifically, so I know she noticed, too.) We also both found the Shirley MacLaine storyline much less stressful and easier to watch, but Debra Winger’s scenes are captivating, too (if you can get past the inadequacies of her husband which my daughter could not).
There was only one thing that I wish I had known about Terms of Endearment before we started. The movie’s been out since 1983. It’s a very well known film. I should have known. I’ve had every opportunity to know. But I didn’t. Not until very late in the movie when a certain plot element came up did I suddenly remember, “Oh yeah.” There are parts of this that are incredibly hard to watch, but it is a really good film.
The Good:
Of course, my daughter and I loved this movie because it’s just a series of verbal and non-verbal conversations that shape and define close and evolving relationships, and we both love that kind of thing. We also both love comedy, and this film is consistently funny. Even its tragic moments (and, wow, does it have those!) contain elements of humor.
Shirley MacLaine’s physical comedy alone was killing my daughter. She loved all the early scenes of MacLaine observing the would-be playboy astronaut who lives next door, played by Jack Nicholson. Both MacLaine and Nicholson won Oscars (for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor) for their work here, and when you watch, it’s easy to see why.
The characters in this film are really fun to think about. I found the overprotective mothering of MacLaine’s Aurora both endearing and alarming in its familiarity. “That reminds me of me,” I said as Aurora practically jumped into the crib to make sure her sleeping baby was breathing. When she accidentally woke her up, I felt her pain. But when she proceeded to leave her there crying, the similarity in our parenting styles ended.
I remember being so worried my daughter would stop breathing after one of her NICU nurses confided that she was ninety-five percent sure she was holding her breath on purpose to make her O2 alarm go off. “She’s always fine, and then every time I walk away to check on my other baby, the alarm goes off.” Other nurses had noticed a similar phenomenon. When we brought her home, I always worried that she would try to get my attention by holding her breath, then keep up the ruse a little too long. Plus advice for new parents is impossible. Make sure they don’t die of SIDS, but whatever you do, no co-sleeping! Also you sleep when the baby sleeps, but if they don’t stir, always check on them. Make sure to get plenty of rest!
For the rest of the movie, my daughter cracked jokes about Aurora (or her daughter) checking in on (or failing to check in on) any other character who might have been asleep. (For me, the most delightful aspect is that my daughter is alive and well to make those jokes as she watches movies with me.) The comedic aspects of MacLaine’s performance really worked for her. Despite Aurora’s quirks, my daughter found her sympathetic and charming.
But I liked Deborah Winger’s character way more than my daughter did. Her performance is kind of out there, but when you read that the actress was struggling with addiction during the filming, that kind of makes sense. I find her character, Emma, pretty intriguing. (There may be some significance to the names. Her mother is kind of a Sleeping Beauty type who needs to be awakened by love’s first kiss, but Emma is way more Bovary than Woodhouse.) I’d love to know why she kisses everyone on the mouth. At first I wondered if it was a behavior reflecting her mother’s boundary issues. Then I thought, “Maybe it’s just supposed to make her look like a friendly Texan.” (But I lived in Houston for a few years, and I never saw anybody there go around indiscriminately kissing everyone on the mouth. At least nobody ever kissed me on the mouth without a good reason twice.) I did notice that Emma does this less and less as the movie goes on, so maybe she does it initially because she’s young. (At first we thought maybe she was romantically involved with Patsy, but then we noticed, “And the housekeeper? And her mom?” That seemed pretty unlikely. I guess I’ll have to read the book. I’d love to know if that’s a trait Emma has as written, or if Debra Winger was doing it on instinct. Hopefully the book will also explain some aspects of Patsy’s behavior (like is she having an affair with Flap?).) Late in the film I began to feel so sorry for Patsy whose efforts to cheer Emma up go increasingly awry. There’s one moment with her friends that reminded me so much of the Simpsons episode featuring Marge’s Chanel suit, which I’m sure is not a total coincidence. Another moment with Patsy’s friends made my daughter laugh out loud incredibly hard in horror.
Emma’s storyline made my daughter so stressed out that at times she physically cringed. For one thing, she could never warm up to her husband Flap (played by Jeff Daniels who could use the performance as his Dumb and Dumber audition). It’s my natural inclination to try to defend people, but Flap does not make that easy. Ultimately my daughter couldn’t stand him because he was neither a good husband nor a good father. He probably is a good professor because he gets tenure, though I began to question that, too, as the film went on. Once you have tenure, you usually don’t leave that institution except for reasons of career advancement. To be fair, we don’t see him at work much, but he comes across as a failure on every level. The best thing he ever does (near the end of the movie) is something that would ordinarily make someone look bad. So my daughter was bashing him the whole time, and eventually I had to stop trying to see things from his point of view. I was suspicious of Flap from the start since Aurora’s warning seems like the kind of sensible advice that gets ignored because the person offering it is behaving badly, but I was determined to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as I could. Finally, it just became impossible. My daughter, on the other hand, disregarded Aurora’s initial warning. She just didn’t like the way Flap always seems to be neglecting his kids. From the point of view of someone who still is a child, behavior like that is bound to make a bad impression. Also, you’d think someone capable of getting academic tenure would be much better at gaslighting his pregnant wife. I’m pretty credulous, and I didn’t believe his ridiculous non-story for one second. Neither did my daughter, and she just finished the sixth grade.
As an adult, I’m obviously more tolerant of Emma’s personal life than any twelve-year-old would be. My daughter also had it in for John Lithgow’s character, Sam. I really have no problem with Sam. I’ve also run out of money in the grocery store while my son was conspicuously misbehaving, so as far as I’m concerned, Sam is just swell. I do, however, agree with my daughter that Emma needs to pay more attention to her kids. She’s weirdly eager to have a bunch of babies for someone who seems to avoid spending time with them whenever possible. At the end, though, she does come through for them in a big way. You want to applaud her parenting in her final scene with her two boys. Most of the time, a big part of Emma’s problem is that she’s trying so hard not to be as controlling and boundary-violating as her mother. She seems to swing to the other extreme, possibly because her husband shames her and compares her to her mother every time she gives the slightest thought or care to one of their children.
So you can see, the characters are quite interesting, which makes their interactions engrossing, even when they’re only going through the mundane activities of ordinary life.
The film is wittily written and well-acted, and its final act crushes your whole heart and soul (so watch out for that). Tonally (and plot wise) it reminds me a bit of Steel Magnolias. (I remember fondly how I always knew in middle school when that was coming on HBO. My six-year-old sister would burst into my bedroom without invitation and sit in front of the TV looking sorrowful. We watched that movie together a lot, so she would almost always burst into tears before we’d even made it through the opening credits.)
Best Scene Visually:
My daughter’s favorite part, by far, is the bit with Aurora and Garrett (Jack Nicholson) on the beach (well, in the ocean, really) in the car. That image does stick with you (especially when Aurora starts wading around). (“She looks like she’s going on a bear hunt!” my daughter said.)
Another thing my daughter noticed very early on in the movie is that little Emma’s bed is bigger than her mother’s. She found that hilarious. I find it quite telling, and surely it’s done deliberately (especially since Aurora eventually gets a bigger bed). By the end of the movie, it’s Emma who’s in a small bed.
Best Scene:
I agree with my daughter that Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson kind of steal this movie (if you can call it stealing when they’re the stars). But my favorite scene may be the last discussion Emma has with her sons, although I also really love the line that Shirley MacLaine says to Flap just before he gives her a hug. I totally know what Aurora means. I’ve lived that moment (though not in those exact circumstances) so many times.
Best Action Sequence:
I love the scene near the end when Shirley MacLaine goes berserk in the hospital. It made me remember something that happened in the NICU the week my daughter was born. Despite being a 25-weeker (as they put it), for four whole days, she breathed on her own. Then they gave her some minimal assistance. One afternoon that first week (the most crucial week), my husband and I rang the NICU doorbell, and they didn’t answer right away. The delay filled me with foreboding. We scrubbed in and went back to our daughter’s room to discover an alarming number of medical professionals gathered around her bed. One of her doctors was using a bag valve mask to help her breathe. I instantly thought of the end of ET. The baby looked so pale. It looked like a deathbed tableau. When the doctor noticed me standing there, she started saying softly, “Did you get tired, little baby? Did you just get tired?” One of the nurses took us out of the room and tried to explain what was happening. They were changing her to a different breathing apparatus. The nurse said, “I know it’s hard to see them in discomfort, but she’ll be okay in a minute.” I was stunned. I croaked, “She will?” When I revealed to the nurse that I had assumed she was dying, she was so shocked and sympathetic. Immediately, all the nurses started reassuring me, and later I could see that the doctor was not pleased that someone had let us walk in to witness that scene in progress with no context.
The point is, I think all of us who have had a loved one in the ICU know exactly how Shirley MacLaine is feeling in that scene. You can’t actually behave like that, of course, or you might get thrown out of the hospital. (I assume. I’ve never tried it. I limited my sobbing to my own recovery room, and the next day, I got new a nurse with medical issues similar to my own. She made a point of telling me I was not difficult for her. She was very reassuring.)
Watching someone you love suffering is extremely distressing and makes you feel so helpless. (Don’t even get me started on the procedure the eye doctor does to check for retinopathy. Even the nurses can’t stand to watch that.) You also feel responsible to advocate for the patient whenever possible because that type of situation makes the person in the hospital bed literally helpless. My mom went through this with my dad so many times, too.
No wonder MacLaine won an Oscar for the performance. Maybe that scene is a bit over-the-top, but her feelings are also relatable because those kinds of circumstances stir such strong emotion.
The Negatives:
What happens to Shirley MacLaine’s character in this movie is so horrible that it is my number one nightmare and the most frequent subject of my prayers. I’ve seen my grandparents go through it twice. I’ve seen two aunts and uncles suffer through it. I’m profoundly relieved it never happened to my mother. The fact that she didn’t deserve it was often a sustaining motivation for me. And if I have anything to say about it, it will never happen to my dad. In my mind, this is probably the most horrible, unendurable, earth-shattering thing that can ever happen to anyone. So I think Terms of Endearment should come with a trigger warning. (Even if you consider this event from a slightly different point of view than the very specific way in which I’ve just framed it, what happens is so tragic.) I don’t want to give major plot spoilers, but if you want to watch this film for the first time and know nothing about it, do yourself a favor and read a synopsis that spoils the ending first.
Apart from that, the only thing my daughter and I didn’t like about the film is the score. We both had the same issue. The main theme repeats again and again, and there’s not enough variation in the music. That same theme bursts into scenes at the most random times, interrupting everything. At some times, that theme just doesn’t feel necessary. At others, it doesn’t even feel appropriate. The lack of musical variation almost makes it seem like brainwashing. “Why is it the same music for everything?” my daughter asked. “So if it starts playing in the mall, you’ll burst into tears?” I guessed. But the film was nominated for Best Original Score, so what do we know? (The answer is nothing. I know nothing about music.) The theme is certainly memorable. I’ll say that for it.
Overall:
You may notice that I talk about my daughter during this entire review. That’s because I talked to her during the whole movie. For us, Terms of Endearment involved two long conversations between a mother and daughter, the one between Aurora and Emma, and the one between the two of us. We loved the movie, but watch out for that ending. It is brutal. It will emotionally destroy you. Then at some random time, you’ll hear that theme playing in the grocery store, and you’ll come completely unglued.